Apple's HealthKit Is a Huge Headache for One Startup

The room full of developers at Apple's big WWDC keynote event in San Francisco this week broke out in applause multiple times as SVP Craig Federighi unveiled HealthKit, a new platform for health and fitness apps that will be released with iOS 8.

On the other side of the world, however, Alison Hardacre and her team had a very different reaction.

"We were pretty shocked when we saw they were using our name," says Hardacre, who is the cofounder and managing director of HealthKit, an Australian healthcare startup. "We had absolutely no advanced warning — none!"

Hardacre founded HealthKit in 2012 with the goal of improving patient management software and making healthcare more efficient. The company, which has fewer than 50 employees according to its LinkedIn page, owns the HealthKit.com website and the Twitter handle @HealthKit.

Apple had not reached out to the company as of Tuesday night and the startup told Wired that the domain name was "too important to let go."

This certainly isn't the first time that Apple has — intentionally or not — stepped on another brand. The term "iPhone" was originally trademarked by Cisco. Even the name "Apple" once led to a dispute with Apple Corps, the record label created by The Beatles.

Apple's announcement led to a surge in traffic for the Australian startup's website and some additional media coverage, but Hardacre worries it may hurt business in the long term.

"Like many startups, we’ve worked so hard to build this business, and we’re pretty shocked by it all and what it could mean for our business, especially as we’re now expanding globally," Hardacre told Mashable by email.

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